Peggy leaned forward and was in deadly earnest. STou must help us, Mr. Wolfe. I love him so much--so i!--and he says he loves me, and I know he does! ay afternoon we decided we would get married October, and then last night we got started talking at it isn't what we say, it's what is in our eyes when

8 Sex Stout

we look at each other. We just can't get married with that back of our eyes and trying to hide it--"

A little shiver went over her. "For years--forever? We can't! We know we can't--it would be horrible! What it is, it's a question: who killed Alberto? Did he? Did I? I don't really think he did, and he doesn't really think I did--I hope he doesn't--but it's there back of our eyes, and we know it is!"

She extended both hands. "We want you to find out!"

Wolfe snorted. "Nonsense. You need a spanking or a psychiatrist. The police may have shortcomings, but they're not nincompoops. If they're satisfied--"

"But that's it! They wouldn't be satisfied if we had told the truth!"

"Oh." Wolfe's browsVent up. "You lied to them?"

"Yes. Or if we didn't lie, anyhow we didn't tell them the truth. We didn't tell them that when we first went in together and saw him, there was no gun lying there. There was no gun in sight."

"Indeed. How sure are you?"

"Absolutely positive. I never saw anything clearer than I saw that--that sight--all of it. There was no gun."

Wolfe snapped at Weppler, "You agree, sir?"

"Yes. She's right."

Wolfe sighed. "Well," he conceded, "I can see that you're really in trouble. Spanking wouldn't help."

I shifted in my chair on account of a tingle at the lower part of my spine. Nero Wolfe's old brownstone house on West Thirty-fifth Street was an interesting place to live and work--for Fritz Brenner, the chef and housekeeper, for Theodore Horstmann, who fed and nursed the ten thousand orchids in the plant rooms up on the roof, and for me, Archie Goodwin, whose main